I Finished the Game (Paladin of Sarenrae/Angel Path/Arue Romance) - Thoughts and SPOILERS!

[Vibishan]

After maybe 300 hours or so (with a lot of help from online guides) I *finally* finished the game! (edit, I thought it was only 100 hours...)

I have a lot of thoughts on this game, good and bad... overall I really loved this game. I grew up and always enjoyed the isometric turn-based RPG and this feels like the ultimate sword-and-sorcery fantasy adventure, nothing I've ever played before does the genre justice like this game does - and I've been playing games like this since Curse of the Azure Bonds by SSI on a Commodore 64 back in the late 1980s. The storytelling was 10/10 and anyone who enjoys a game for its story will appreciate all of the options (and consequences) this game has to offer. Owlcat did a fantastic job here, well done!

My one big criticism overall is that there are aspects of the game that really bog down the pacing and there are plenty of moments where the level of complexity in puzzles, choices and quests goes well beyond necessary - at least for the main quests. I relied on online guides to get through several major parts, and other things I had to learn the hard way. Some of the puzzles were overly cryptic, and the war mechanic was clunky (e.g. the reliance on doom stacks of a few choice troop types was annoying). I didn't agree with the alignment mechanics making Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos not being fully independent axes, it made playing a paladin difficult (I had to get a scroll of atonement after teetering on the edge between LG and NG and finally making a very Good choice that broke my character).

I really liked the romance arc with Arueshalae - the character concept of a romantically shy succubus was unique and well executed with her. I got the impression that she was originally a very demure demoness who seduced her prey with the "secret forbidden fruit" act, and when she was converted by Desna took the flip-side of this and became very shy and self-conscious of her desires. It made for a very sweet romance arc where you get to woo her like in a Jane Austen novel all while preventing her from backsliding into her old succubus ways and I LOVED that (especially when she put herself into horny jail LOL). In the end, I had my angel paladin choose to stay on Golarian with her since they were both effectively immortal, and the whole angel/demon dichotomy gave a neat yin-yang vibe to their relationship. The ending did surprise me a bit that Arueshalae chose to live alone in a secluded cottage and you both kept your relationship a secret to the wider public, but that seems to make sense to me given her character growth over the campaign (she still grapples with the memories and guilt of her past but has learned to take it all in stride - and this was her own dream that she fought for throughout the campaign). My head canon is that my character continued to advise and attend meetings in Drezen to advise Queen Galfrey as an honored member of her royal court but would travel back to see his beloved when he grew sick of the politics. Semi-retirement, yea!

Another thing I really liked was the motivation for Areelu Vorlesh for making the Worldwound. As someone who thinks too often about the ramifications of living in a world like Pathfinder's Golarion (or the many D&D & other fantasy worlds written in a similar fashion) I feel I have a fundamental distaste for a reality run by quarreling gods who use mortals as the hapless pawns of their power struggles. As she argued in her monologue (and reinforced in the many scenes of her backstory), there is a loss of agency being a mortal, and only those who amass enough power can push back - and she chose to rip the world apart in her own form of righteous wrath against the system. I am also a parent, and thinking of losing a child forever like she did, even after all the efforts she made to bring them back, really hit me hard. It made for a great commentary on the fallacy of this kind of existence, but I can see that dooming everyone to suffer needlessly as collateral in your rage is not justice but just another form of tyranny "under new management" as it seemed to me. And this is how I played & motivated my character - I didn't know how the story ended so I first figured my character just wanted to unite the resistance and bring peace back to the world. Knowing the truth of the Worldwound and the potential & agency my character gained, I had him choose what Areelu couldn't: to bring peace, order and justice to Sarkoris (as much as can be attained at least). I made her face fair justice, like everyone else before and after her, after she was given up to seal the Worldwound (I didn't intervene in her final judgement with Pharasma). It's not clear to me if my character was really the soul of her child or not, but my head canon is that my character is a reflection or reincarnation of them at some spiritual or philosophical level, and that they have finally made right what their mother made wrong (even in their own name). It was great to make that choice, given that the game allowed for consequences for making these choices. Other people can (and have) chosen very different paths, but I liked the ending I got and I will enjoy that after-game "glow" now that's it's done for quite a while.

Those are the key thoughts I have - I liked how the campaign really developed and changed each of the characters in a significant way, and the ending I got was very poetic and closed up the various story threads very nicely.

Once again, great storytelling!

[Green Knight]

Yeah, absolutely a 10/10 game.

Does it have some flaws? Sure, but they are vastly overshadowed by its many, many strengths.

Unrelatedly: I owned Curse of the Azure Bonds back in the day but was never able to finish it...

[dataseer21]

I would put the story telling at 6 or 7 out of ten at first. Then I thought if you compare it to what garbage is out there it could be an 8 out of 10 or even 9. The basic story line is kind of solid. They had a lot of different writers I think and some were better than others. There are some lines in the game that are pretty bad. Some of the missions are kind of bad. Still once again if you compare it with the average it wins out.

I just have so many hours because I think pathfinder is gold. I just play over and over again with different builds. So Pathfinder with dnd 5e is 10 out of 10 I think. I don't know if I like Pathfinder 2e from a game that I played as much. Maybe 8 out of 10.

Part of a high ranking for the game is that they allow you to remove the Crusade portion with just setting it to Auto. If I had to play the crusade each time I would have only played this game once. You mentioned the puzzles and I really don't like them. That would lower the ranking of the game.

That would set this game at a 7 or 8 out of 10. Though again when you compare it to the garbage out there I can see why it would be a 9 or 10 out of 10.

[Shahadem]

Areelu does not have a point. She is just jealous.

The "gods" as they exist basically just sit around doing nothing but granting power to their priests. The problems are caused by mortals.

Areelu's backstory is that HUMANS killed her child because those HUMANS were jealous of the power magic users had.

So basically Areelu is a dumb idiot hypocrite who kills the children of other people because she is jealous that gods have more power than she does and because OTHER people (not the ones whose children she kills) killed her child.

[Crusader993]

Originally posted by dataseer21:

Though again when you compare it to the garbage out there I can see why it would be a 9 or 10 out of 10.

WotR has many qualities, but for me personally, the real seal of quality is precisely the fact you indirectly point out: that it can hardly be compared to any other game, even in the cRPG genre. The reason for this is Owlcat's unique style, which is evident in various aspects.

(One unique aspect, for example, is the focus on the magnificent musical orchestration that Owlcat gives all its games.)